First Impressions

For my program, Spring in Vienna, we have a class blog. Our first assignment was to write about a first impression. Here is mine.

Formal Wien

I would not consider myself a novice traveler and I would not consider myself culturally unaware, which is good considering Anthropology is a big part of my major. My preconceived notion though towards Vienna was incorrect in regards to formality. I imagined that Vienna, while classier than most US cities, would be fairly casual in regards to interactions and business. Actually, I thought it would be pretty similar to how Seattle runs. This however has not been true in the last week.

One of my favorite past times in Seattle is grabbing a cup of coffee at one of the thousands of Cafes and walking around. Vienna has a ton of "Cafes," but they are not the same as what we find in Seattle. One cannot simply walk into a cafe here and expect a quick informal interaction. Going to a cafe here means sitting down, ordering, then slowly drinking while remaining in the cafe atmosphere. Many "cafes" here aren't even specialized in coffee. On one of the first days here a few of us walked into one that was actually more of a bar. Which still seems informal, but not when you compare it to Starbucks. On Friday, Mac, Monica and I went to the Sacher Cafe for the famous Sacher Torte. This cafe was so formal that we were worried we were not dressed nice enough. I have never had this experience in a Seattle cafe.

Like we learned in our German 299 class, Cafe Culture is a thing in Vienna. It is just not what I expected it to be. At first I was deterred by it, but I think with time it will become less foreign and I will come to enjoy my coffee as more of a luxury and experience. Which honestly, that is exactly how coffee should be. So out with the informal Seattle and in with the classy Vienna.